The Minister of state for Power, Mr Goddy Agba, says what Nigeria has been experiencing this year is not grid collapse but system disruption.
The Minister made the remark at the investigative hearing on recurrent national grid collapse in the country, organized by the house of Representatives committee on power.
Mr Agba explained that power disruptions were caused by either human, implements or political factors.
The Minister described last month blackout as a sabotage.
“Sometime last month we had a blackout for a short while. We saw on social media young men switching off the system. That is not a collapse. That is a deliberate vandalisation, infact it was a sabotage. How can young men go and switch off putting the nation in blackout just because of some grudges.”
He added that the problem was caused by a union matter, which he is already handling.
The Managing Director of the Transmission company of Nigeria, Mr Sule Abdul’aziz, stated that from 2017 to 2021 the incidences of total system disturbances has been on the decline signifying sustained improvement in grid stability with every passing year.
Executive secretary for the association of power generation companies Dr Joy Ogaji, attributed the problem to obsolete infrastructure and excessive volatile load.
A member of the committee from Katsina state Mr Sada Soli, expressed dissatisfaction with the explanations of the various stakeholders who made submissions at the hearing.
According to him, none of them have made any suggestion on how to solve the problems in the power sector.
The chairman of the committee, Mr Magaji Aliyu stated that they would constitute a technical committee to compile their report and recommendations to prevent future occurrences.
RADIO NIGERIA